S.Rajam’s (Music Appreciation notes)

Monday, 12 February 2018

Chandru Anna

A youthful veteran

By V Ramnarayan

First published in The Bengal Post on 12 Feb 2011

When CV Chandrasekhar, Bharatanatyam guru and this year’s Padma
Bhushan awardee, dances before the beautiful Panduranga idol at Tennangur, a
hamlet in Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu, it is an act of total
surrender. What is special about this offering is that its sense of abandon is
accompanied by total control and precision, perfect abhinaya or expression and
nritta, or footwork, in the best classical traditions. The dancer is a mere 75.

For Chandru Anna, as every dancer young or old addresses him, it
is part of an annual ritual in which he leads some 30 to 40 students and
teachers of his art form in a three-day workshop, held at a large facility
adjacent to the temple in this centre of pilgrimage. On two evenings during the
workshop, all the participants dance before the deity, swinging into ecstatic
action during the dolotsavam, when the idol is worshipped in a cradle, and the
garudotsavam, a procession around the temple, with the local residents and
visiting pilgrims joining them. So many professional and amateur artists coming
together in such a joyous celebration of their art in a temple ambience must
indeed be a rare spectacle

The workshop called Natya Sangraham, now in its twelfth year, with
Chandrasekhar presiding over eleven of them (he missed one through illness), is
organised by Natyarangam, the dance wing of the Narada Gana Sabha, one of
Chennai’s major sabhas, typically south Indian institutions that conduct music,
dance and theatrical programmes for their subscriber members and the general
public. Experts from the fields of dance, music, poetry and theatre engage the
participants, mostly young dancers and dance teachers, in academic and
practical sessions on predetermined topics. The daylong activity is stimulating
and rigorous, but the delegates are housed in considerable comfort and served
delicious vegetarian food. The informal post-prandial ‘tinnai’ sessions at
night are an opportunity to listen to stories from the rich past of the
stalwarts and discuss current issues affecting the performing arts scene. The
whole event has the blessings of the movement behind the temple, the GA
Trust—founded by the followers of the late Swami Gnananda Giri—which among
other things extends the best in education and healthcare to a number of
villages in the vicinity. Adding to the atmosphere is the architectural beauty
of the temple—built under the auspices of the late Swami Haridas Giri,
Gnananda’s disciple, in the authentic old style of the Puri Jagannath
temple—and its gopurams in the Pandya style.

I first came into contact with Chandru Anna, when he and Leela
Samson, at present director of Kalakshetra of Chennai and Sangeet Natak
Akademi, gave a thrilling performance of a tillana—the southern equivalent of a
tarana—in praise of Rukmini Devi Arundale, founder of Kalakshetra on her 80th
birthday, more than a couple of decades ago. A youthful fifty-something then,
Chandrasekhar was then head of the department of dance in Maharaja Sayajirao
(MS) University, Baroda. An alumnus of Kalakshetra, which he joined as a boy in
1945, Chandru Anna later went to Benares Hindu University where he did a
masters in botany and taught for a while before moving to MS University, where
he eventually became Principal. He served there till his retirement, relocating
at Chennai some ten years ago. His wife Jaya and daughters Chitra and Manjari
are Bharata Natyam dancers, too, and the Chandrasekhars are well known for
their many productions that include both solo performances and dance drama.
Chandrasekhar has choreographed and produced many dance dramas including
Bhumija, Meghadutam, Ritu Samharam and Aparajita, showing a marked liking for
the classics of Kalidasa. Jaya learnt Bharata Natyam from Lalita Sastri of
Delhi, Kathak from Birju Maharaj, the maestro of the Lucknow gharana, and
Odissi from the one and only Kelucharan Mahapatra. She too taught at BHU, MS
University and later at her own institution Nityashree in Baroda.

Chandrasekhar is a rare amalgam of varied influences. A south
Indian who started school in Delhi, he graduated in dance from Kalakshetra and
botany from Vivekananda College, Madras. Well versed in Carnatic music, he grew
comfortable with Hindustani as well as folk forms of music during his long
years in Varanasi and Gujarat. His travels overseas, beginning with his tour of China in the
1960s as a member of a cultural delegation, brought him a sophisticated
awareness of art forms and trends everywhere. While quite at home in so many
diverse milieus, Chandrasekhar remains firmly rooted in the austere traditions
of the classical dance he learnt from great gurus at Kalakshetra. Clean lines
and good taste characterize his every move.

A vastly experienced performer and guru, and among the most
accessible veterans of his art, Chandrasekhar is superbly fit and still able to
dance like a young man. He is a giving teacher, holding nothing back while
sharing his accumulated wisdom with his students and the participants at the
annual workshop.

The high point of this year’s Natya Sangraham was his
demonstration of a complex, physically demanding composition of his to the
accompaniment of thunderous applause from students and faculty. It was a
memorable moment that brought tears to the eyes of the onlookers.Posted
by Ramnarayan at 1:24 AM